Hello Hans.

Beautiful garden layout

The 5577 was made before Märklin could make decoders work with the Märklin Motorola protocol on 2-rails systems,
thus it was "born" with a Lenz DCC decoder, like many other of the first digital 1-gauge locos.

For some years after, when Märklin figured out to make Märklin Motorola work on 2-rail systems,
the company offered to have the original decoder replaced with a newer decoder.

A lot of these locos are being sold on Ebay, still with the original decoder.

You could try DCC address 3; but I will recommend you to get a new decoder.

The KöF being a small loc, will work just fine with an ESU decoder made for H0.

Per.

If it is that old that it still has a non-Motorola format decoder than it may also have a motor with a field winding. Check the motor before investing in a new decoder. ESU make a magnet suitable for G1 locos, unless this smaller size loco happens to have an HO sized motor.

I’ll check the DCC 3 address thing tomorrow, I believe the Marklin Central Station 2 allows a DCC input.

One short VIP visit video for your amusement

Thanks for the help, I’ve now tried DCC 3 and DCC 77, neither work, so I guess I will need to open it up and see whether or not there is a decoder inside.

When it is placed on the Central Station 2 programming track the 3 lights on the rear are softly illuminated, so the locomotive is receiving power.

If it needs a decoder, is fitting one an easy task, or is it best to send it to the Marklin Service dept?

Thanks for your advice Graham.

I have just received this reply from the Marklin Service Dept: you cannot control the origin decoder inside of this model with your Central Station, because this origin decoder is made for digital 1 and not for mfx, DCC or MM.

So I guess I need to change the decoder. I wonder if anyone on the forum has done this with this particular locomotive model, and if so, which decoder they bought and used?

Hi Markus, so do I simply input DCC14 into the Central Station, surely there needs to be an additional address number?

The crocodile train in he video has a non Marklin decoder and runs in DCC mode with an address of 181

Sorry to sound a bit stupid Marcus, but I’m not very technical. Once I have input DCC14 and with the train on the track, do I touch the address train icon button with the arrow pointing above it, to get the full address?

Hi Hans, when Markus refers to the 'Protocol', think of it as the 'language' that the decoder can understand.

The address on the other hand is like someones name, and then the actual operation, speed, functions etc are the words you would use to talk to another person speaking the same language that make up the conversation.

So DCC14 in this instance refers to the language that particular decoder can understand. Specifically "Digital Command Control 14", with 14 being the number of incremental speed steps it can respond to - 14 is quite coarse by today's standards).

Anything sent using any other protocol would be like someone who only understands English listening in on a conversation in a foreign language. You can 'hear' the conversation, but none of it makes sense.

Many modern decoders can understand multiple protocols, but not these very early versions.

So with your controller, they have the option for each Loco or address to also define which Protocol ('Language') should be transmitted to that address when it is called up.

I'm afraid I don't currently have my CS2 available so I can't share the exact examples or steps but someone will be able to give more detail. However from my CS2 manual (D/GB) it's sort of covered on page 45, but not in perhaps the detail you require.

Hope this helps

Steve